Question

Anyone know the time-complexity of ECMAScript5’s Object.keys() in common implementations? Is it O(n) for n keys? Is time proportional to the size of the hash table, assuming a hash implementation?

I’m looking for either guarantees by language implementors or some real world benchmarking.

Answer 1

It appears to be O(n) in V8 (chrome, node.js) at least:

> var hash = {}
>   ,    c = 0;
> 
> var s = +new Date();Object.keys(hash);console.log(+new Date() - s);
0
> for(var i=0; i<100000; i++, c++){ hash[c] = 1; }
> var s = +new Date();Object.keys(hash);console.log(+new Date() - s);
26
> for(var i=0; i<100000; i++, c++){ hash[c] = 1; }
> var s = +new Date();Object.keys(hash);console.log(+new Date() - s);
49
> for(var i=0; i<100000; i++, c++){ hash[c] = 1; }
> var s = +new Date();Object.keys(hash);console.log(+new Date() - s);
75
> for(var i=0; i<100000; i++, c++){ hash[c] = 1; }
> var s = +new Date();Object.keys(hash);console.log(+new Date() - s);
102